


A Higher Standard of Cleanliness

by Scribe34



Series: Conquer the Night [2]
Category: Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions, Pocket Monsters: Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon | Pokemon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon Versions
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Chores, Crack, Gen, Humor, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Injuries, Sewing, mostly canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 17:02:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14406543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribe34/pseuds/Scribe34
Summary: “What do you think the grunts could do?”“I think we could all take one day a week and clean our living spaces. It wouldn't have to be like, everyone on the same day,” he added quickly, with a glance at Guzma. He realized that Plumeria was staging the conversation for Guzma's benefit. “Just, whenever you had some free time. Especially if you share a room with other people. That's polite.”





	A Higher Standard of Cleanliness

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place three to six months after (Windowpain), and eighteen months to two years before Sun/Moon moves to Alola.
> 
> In both game canon and my AU, Guzma is in his late twenties to early thirties, and Plumeria is in her mid-twenties. They are the leaders of Alola's only existing delinquent gang. You can't tell me that they don't swear; but there is a lot of profanity so if you're not fond of that you might want to skip this one.
> 
> This one-shot was inspired by a cutscene from the Shady House. When you walk into one of the bedrooms on the second floor (the one just to the left of the stairs, if I remember correctly), you are treated to a silly interaction between two of the female Grunts that has to do with basic hygiene. I compared this with the in-game neatness of Plumeria's room at the Shady House, and a plot bunny was born. You're welcome.

One of the weirdest things about living in Team Skull headquarters— a crumbling mansion in rainy Po Town— was that Plumeria was a clean freak.

The _rest_ of the house was a mess, the kitchen was a nightmare, the walls were graffitioed, and people rarely (if ever) did laundry in a way that was more thorough than “hang dirty clothes outside in the rain and hope for the best.” Yet Plumeria's room was neatly pristine, her makeup and hair-care products perfectly organized on the shelves in her room. Gladion had only been there a few times— most discipline issues within the collective hot mess of Grunts went to Plumeria, rather than Guzma. This was probably because Plumeria did not solve problems by hitting them until they stopped breathing.

So when Gladion was hit with the double-barrelled problem of “smelly, slightly moldy clothes” and “Null ripped the damn arm off my jacket sleeve,” he naturally went to Plumeria.

She was sitting at her desk, intently applying neon pink and yellow eyeliner around her golden eyes, but her door was open so he knocked and stood in the doorway, waiting for permission to enter.

“Come in, Gladion,” she said, without looking at him. Gladion wasn't sure how she knew it was him. “Close the door behind you.”

Gladion came in and closed the door, moving into her periphery. He was wearing the Team Skull tank top that they were all issued on joining, and it was probably this that made Plumeria pause and look over at him. He always wore his jacket, but now his arms were bare, lined with a scant muscle that came more from skinniness than work ethic.

“Suits you,” she said, turning back to her work. “What can I do ya for?”

It was absolutely not his imagination that she'd deliberately phrased the second question in such a way as to make him uncomfortable. Gladion silently cursed his fair skin and the ease with which it showed his blushes, and cleared his throat.

“Is there a laundry machine, somewhere?” he asked. “Or at the very least a bar of soap?”

“You're the first grunt who's asked.” He saw her eyes, fixed thoughtfully on him, in the mirror. “Why'd you come to me? Because I'm a girl?”

“You have a... higher standard of cleanliness than everyone else.” Gladion looked down at his lap. His skin was crawling, the result of weeks of barely-washed clothes. “Also, Molly said you do patchwork sometimes, when the others rip their clothes. I wanted to know if you could teach me to sew.”

There was a long silence, so he peeked back up.

Plumeria finished sweeping a perfect line of hot-pink under her left eye and stared at it in the mirror for a few seconds before nodding, sitting back, and putting the cap onto the eyeliner pen. She turned in the swivel chair and folded her hands in her lap, gaze fixed unnervingly on him. “You want to learn to sew?”

“Null ripped my jacket again,” mumbled Gladion, looking down again. “If I asked you to patch it every time she ripped something of mine, you wouldn't ever get anything done.”

“It seems kind of unstable.”

“She,” said Gladion firmly.

“I thought the man-made ones were genderless.”

“They are, but— Null is a girl. I can tell.”

“Gotcha,” said Plumeria, nodding. “That'd be genital expression versus gender identity. But that's a philosophical question for Null itself— or herself, I guess.”

Gladion had never heard Plumeria string that many large words together in quite that fashion before. And even more oddly, her accent had changed slightly, as she spoke. It had gone from her usual lazy drawl to slightly  _Kalosian_ , which he had not expected.

“Can you teach me to sew?” he asked again, deciding not to ask if she was Kalosian. “I don't want to bother you all the time about it.”

“That's real nice and all,” said Plumeria, a touch patronizingly, “but keep in mind that I'm here to be bothered, so that you don't bother Guzma who hits people when they bother him. It's a bad habit learned from his dad; we're working on it. I don't put up with bullying people who need you to live.”

Gladion thought of his own father for a moment, wistful; then he thought of Lusamine, which he had not done in months, and his mind immediately backed out, blanked out, _nope_ , that was a topic of thought that was off-fucking-limits.

“Yeah, I'll teach you,” said Plumeria, turning back to her desk and picking up a tube of lipstick.

“Thank you.”

She swiped the lipstick over her lips, producing a neon-pink color that could only be replicated in nature by a Smoochum or a Jynx. “Ever been in the basement?”

“Uh— no? I didn't know there was a basement.” He was reminded briefly of the Aether sub-basements, the maze among the floating machines. Everything was white-walled and smelled of harsh chemical cleanser that burned his nose. _Null, floating in a stasis machine as Faba leered at her, needles in both hands_... Gladion shook off the image.

“Door's behind the stairs, on your way back to the kitchen. Lots of Spinarak nesting down there, though thankfully no Ariados. That's why most of the Grunts don't bother; they don't like the spiders. I don't mind 'em; I take Grime or Sally with me and use Flamethrower or Rock Slide when the bugs get too uppity. G likes them, too.” He'd wondered about Guzma, who also generally had clean clothes. Gladion had sort of thought that Plumeria did laundry for Guzma, but this made more sense. “There's a washing machine and a dryer down there, but obviously they only work when the power is on.” She considered him thoughtfully. “If you've got an Electric-type, that helps. I usually borrow G's Charjabug.”

Ah. He didn't have an Electric type, but he could have Null hold the Electric Memory. The issue, of course, would be getting her to stay in one place long enough to power it. He barely had a grasp on Null's power in battle, let alone when he just let her out long enough to try and tame her.

“Thank you,” he said gratefully. “I really appreciate it.”

She nodded and opened her desk drawer, pulling out a cardboard sheet with needles stuck through it and a spool of black thread. “Sewing lesson.”

“Right now? You're not busy?”

“No. Are you?”

Gladion shook his head. “I think Guzma wanted to see me,” he muttered, looking down at his lap, “but I'm going to interpret it as a suggestion and not an order until I have something to wear.”

“Good call,” said Plumeria, surprising him. “If you report, he thinks you're available right away. If he comes after you in a temper, I'll deal with him. Now, you start by threading the needle...”

She had showed him a running stitch and a back stitch before the door banged open and Guzma barged in.

“I _told_ you I had a mission for you!” he barked at Gladion, who jumped so hard that he stabbed himself in the fleshy pad of his thumb with the needle. “Are you so fuckin' stupid you can't come when you're told?”

“ _G_.”

It was one syllable, one word— said with such venom-coated ice that Guzma paused mid-rant to look at Plumeria.

She stood up, crossing her arms, and walked between Gladion and Guzma.

“Fuck off,” she said softly.

“I needed him, he's the only one who doesn't have his head up his ass most of the time, and he's in here having fuckin' _sewing_ _lessons_ , Arceus—”

“Because his teammate is still unstable, she's ripped up half his wardrobe. Does he need clothes to do whatever you need him to do?”

For a half a moment, Gladion was horribly afraid that Guzma would defiantly say “no” and Plumeria would make him go half-naked on whatever trip Guzma had planned. Lusamine wouldn't have hesitated, would have delighted in the humiliation of it.

“Oh,” said Guzma, blinking in surprise. “Well, yeah. Everyone needs clothes, I guess.”

The blood was welling up on Gladion's thumb. He reached up to put it in his mouth, but a hand on his wrist stopped him.

“Higher standard of cleanliness, remember,” said Plumeria, her voice suddenly gentle. “Bandages are in the drawer where I keep the needles.”

She stood up, moving away; Gladion stopped blushing long enough to get a bandage out from the drawer. “Can I use your bathroom to wash it off?” he asked meekly.

“Go ahead,” said Plumeria generously, waving him in the direction of the bathroom. “I need to chat with G anyway.”

Gladion took that to mean he should close the bathroom door to give them privacy. He rinsed off his finger. The needle prick hurt like a bitch, but what was worse about it was that at his belt, the Pokéball containing Null was vibrating. She could smell the blood, which was both creepy and fascinating, and she wanted out, which had implications that he tried not to think about. Imp could smell it, but Imp wasn't crazy and he knew better. Gladion washed off the blood, and the vibration stopped; he applied the bandage and pressed it smoothly onto his finger, not allowing a single wrinkle or lump in the adhesive.

He opened the bathroom door to find that Guzma was lying down on Plumeria's bed, tossing a Pokéball up and down but not releasing whatever Pokémon was inside. Gladion thought he recognized a scratch on the ball, which meant he was playing catch with his Wimpod. Plumeria was sitting on the floor, where she had been sitting when she was teaching him. She smiled— which was honestly kind of creepy— and patted the floor, indicating that he should sit down.

Instead of immediately continuing the sewing lesson, she said, “Let me pick your brain for a minute. In your opinion, is the _higher standard of cleanliness_ that you and I have unrealistic?”

Gladion noticed that she had not included Guzma in that statement. “Do you mean in terms of expecting other people to keep clean, or are you just asking what I think the other grunts are capable of doing?”

She laughed. “Smart-ass. Let's say both.”

“I think a reasonable standard of cleanliness for everyone is that you don't produce off-putting odors,” said Gladion, shrugging. “It's kind of difficult when you live somewhere that's consistently rainy and everything grows mold if it stays wet long enough, which it always does because Alola is humid. So it might take a little extra work besides washing your clothes regularly and showering at least every other day, but it would be worth it.”

“Hmm. Good thought.” Plumeria looked pointedly over at Guzma, who was still playing catch with his Wimpod, and turned back to Gladion. “What do you think the grunts could do?”

“I think we could all take one day a week and clean our living spaces. It wouldn't have to be like, everyone on the same day,” he added quickly, with a glance at Guzma. He realized that Plumeria was staging the conversation for Guzma's benefit. “Just, whenever you had some free time. Especially if you share a room with other people. That's polite.”

“And what about shared areas, like the kitchen? Or the basement?”

“Well, if there's Spinarak nests, that would be kind of hard to maintain without relocating them or, um, destroying them.” Guzma's face turned thunderous, so Gladion quickly added, “Which is obviously a last-ditch option. Spinarak are kind of cute; it's the Ariados I find creepy.”

Plumeria looked like she was trying not to laugh. “So we might have to do laundry in groups, with Pokémon to keep the spiders off?”

“Yeah, I guess that would work. And for everywhere else, if we all cleaned, say the kitchen, at the same time, it would take about an hour. Sweep the floor, wipe down the counters, clean out the toaster and the microwave when they get full of crumbs or splatters, clean the bits of burnt food out of the stovetop, and wash dishes. I know there's a dish rotation, but nobody follows it but you, me, Molly, and a couple of the other girls. The other guys don't do it at all, and they all give me shit about it.”

He hadn't intended to say anything about that— he figured it was hazing, picking on the new kid. But Gladion remembered nights where Lillie was assigned to wash dishes and Gladion was confined to his room, because “weak women do housework, strong women do business,” and he wasn't allowed to help because it was Lillie's punishment, not his. And then, later, it was _his_ punishment, that Lillie had to do the dishes— because Lusamine saw it gave him even more pain when his sister was punished for his mistakes.

Arceus, he missed Lillie. He hoped she was okay.

“ _Do_ they,” said Plumeria, her voice suddenly flat.

The air of the room seemed to charge with electricity. Guzma sat up on the bed, looking curiously at Gladion.

“Why didn't you say anythin' until now?”

 _Because I deserve to do the stupid chores, all the times Lillie had to do it and not me._ “I just thought it was some initiatory hazing bullshit, so I ignored it.”

“Well, look at that,” said Plumeria, in a tone that sounded both pleasant and ominous. “It sure looks like acting like a bully toward people who depend on you is fucking _learned_.”

Guzma's face rapidly darkened from red to violet. “You—” He sputtered.

Plumeria's eyes hardened, rigid gold. “ _I_ am gonna draw up a new dish rota. And a cleaning schedule. The schedule comes with a list of punishments for slacking off or mistreating others. _You_ are gonna call a meeting, and you are gonna _enforce_ my rules.”

Gladion looked from Plumeria to Guzma, wide-eyed. He was quite sure that one or the other of them would spontaneously combust and pull the entire mansion into a black hole of rage— eternal hellfire if Guzma, infinite frozen wastelands if Plumeria. Null, sensing the emotion in the room, vibrated at his waist again.

“Awright, you win,” said Guzma finally, his coloring fading from puce to a sullen flush. “Everybody follows the sissy cleaning rules.”

“If you want to keep fucking me, you're not gonna call them 'sissy cleaning rules' in front of the grunts,” said Plumeria, in a tone that was definitely just pleasant and not even a little bit ominous.

Guzma's eyes widened. “Uh, yes, ma'am.” He coughed, got to his feet, and went out the door. “Let me know when you're ready for that meeting, and I'll call 'em in.”

He closed the door behind him. Plumeria let out a deep sigh and laid down on the ground, closing her eyes.

“Um,” said Gladion hesitantly. “Did you set me up?”

“A little bit, yeah.” There was not an ounce of shame in her tone or expression. “I've wanted to lean on chores for ages, because you're right. The house is fucking gross, and the grunts are great kids but they're also pretty fucking gross, and I'm really goddamn sick of it. G kept saying that it wasn't important. So I used you to _make_ it important.” She opened her eyes, peering at him with the same tiger-gold eyes. “That all right by you?”

“Yeah. I just wanted to know.”

That got him a smile. “You're a smart kid, Gladion. I don't think you're gonna be a grunt for much longer.”

“There are ranks?”

“The kids down there are too dumb to earn them.” Her voice was affectionate. “But yeah, there are ranks. G always saw it something like Team Rocket. I'm the only Admin, but that's just a fancy way of saying that I'm the team mom. But he added another job, which is Enforcer— a fancy way of saying 'one of the few people who doesn't have a Pokémon team that is complete shit.' ”

Gladion blinked, then flushed. “I've just got Null and a Zubat that I only caught because it wouldn't stop _dive-bombing_ me in Diglett Tunnel.”

Plumeria grinned— not the slightly creepy smile she had offered earlier, when Guzma was in the room; but a full-bodied, sincere, almost friendly grin. “That means it likes you. It'll make a good team member, that Zubat. I have a Golbat I like, myself.”

“He's pretty okay,” admitted Gladion. “Sometimes I'll let him out after I've had a rough time with Null. He likes to lick my scratches. I was worried about it at first, because Null gets antsy when she smells blood to begin with and Zubats are Poison-type, but the saliva—”

“—has an anti-venom, which works like a painkiller,” finished Plumeria, nodding. “It's handy, but don't let him do it too often. It's like booze or cigs— you can get addicted. Once a week, no more.”

Gladion nodded. He'd been doing it a bit more than that, but he would cut back since an addiction was likely to become a problem for either of them. The Zubat was very friendly, which was unusual for a Zubat— they took delight in being pests, but Gladion's Zubat was simply affectionate. Annoyingly so. Imp had managed to find a way into his heart, which he had not thought possible with all the times it had been broken.

He realized he'd gone into a stupor of thought, and looked up to see Plumeria watching him.

“Kid, you're too good to be here,” she said quietly.

He was surprised to see the shadow of heartbreak in her eyes.

“No, I'm not.”

“Yes, you are. I don't know why you're here, and I don't wanna know. But you deserve better. You really do.”

He thought of Lillie, washing stacks of dishes as Lusamine took clean plates out of the cupboard, wiped each one with a gravy-coated brush, and put them in the sink for her to wash again. He thought of Wicke and her silent, grave face as she handed him enough money to live on for a year and the way she looked worriedly at Lillie before he left with Null's ball in his pocket. He thought of Faba's sneering grin, of Null's stasis-tube and the slow, deadened panic in her eyes, the panic that felt so much like what he saw in the mirror each day that he knew he could not leave her, and he knew he could not stay. He thought of his father, gone but not forgotten; and he thought of Lusamine, even though the very thought of her sent familiar aches to his fingers and toes and heart.

_You're not good enough to inherit this company._

_It's your fault your father's gone. He couldn't bear to watch the miserable failure you would become, so he threw himself into his work and now he's vanished._

_She has to wash the dishes because you were rude at dinner. How will either of you ever learn your lesson if you don't suffer a little bit?_

_Who are you to question my authority? Faba performs company- and budget-approved experiments on creatures that are barely worth the money it costs to store them. The Null project is good for nothing else, anyway._

_Why do you wear so much black? It washes you out, darling. You really must choose something that complements your appearance; it needs all the help it can get._

_Stop being so moody. Aren't you having fun? I'm having fun!_

_These Pokémon need me. I love them, and they will die without my love._

“Gladion.”

Gladion blinked. His eyes were wet. Plumeria handed him a tissue.

He wiped his eyes, then balled it up and shoved it into his pocket. “Trust me,” he said roughly. “I _deserve_ to be here.”

She didn't argue with him; simply regarded him, her expression oddly soft.

“Thank you for the sewing lesson, and the directions to the laundry machine.”

It was instinctive, after recalling some of his worst memories; but he bowed— a short, jerky bow, with his hands pressed against his legs to stop them from shaking— and left her room, going back to his own before she could ask him anything like _why_ or _who_ or _how_.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

“Starting now, we're doing cleaning checks,” said Guzma, sticking his hands behind his head. There was no indication in his face that he thought any of this was stupid or unnecessary.

The grunts at large groaned.

“Shut up,” ordered Guzma. “The house is yours to wreck as you see fit. Sure, you can paint all over the walls and you don't have to make your bed if you don't want. But when you inflict your mess onto other people, then we have a problem. If you or your shit smells funny, we frog-march you to the shower.”

“Who's we?” asked a bolder grunt.

“If you're a girl, then it's Plumeria and... let's say Molly.” Gladion glanced over at Molly, and saw that she was beaming. “If you're a boy, it's me and Gladion.”

A few of the grunts shot him dirty looks, but Gladion was used to those so he ignored them.

“Now, the dishes are a problem.”

“We have a dish rotation,” pointed out one of the male grunts.

“Yeah, and when was the last time _you_ washed the dishes, Emmett?” snarled Guzma. “I went in and checked before calling the meeting; it's a nasty fuckin' heap of plates with food scabbed onto it from sitting there for days. It smells like shit and there was a Rattata in the corner before it fled for its fuckin' life down a hole in the baseboard. The problem with the dish rotation is that if not everybody washes their fuckin' dishes, it's not a fuckin' rotation. It's _you_ making other people clean up your mess. And in Team Skull, we don't make each other clean up our messes. We ask nicely, and then we help each other out, because we're a fuckin' family. Got it, numbskull?”

Emmett looked appropriately abashed.

“So we're redoing the dish rotation. Everybody does dishes once a week, in groups of two or three for each meal. That includes me and Plumeria. No fuckin' exceptions.” Gladion thought Guzma looked slightly disgruntled as he delivered this order, but he was sort of pleased to see a smirk on Plumeria's face, her arms crossed as she stood behind him. “And that includes all the boys. You wash dishes, too. It's not a fuckin' girl's job. You ever go to a restaurant and see the people who clear plates and shit off the table? That's called a bus _boy_ , not a bus _girl_. But I'm not gonna make just the boys do it; girls have to do it too. Everybody washes dishes, that's fair. And if you give anyone a hard time about washing dishes, you get double fuckin' dish duty. I will be all too happy to hand my dishwashing slot off to one of you numbskulls.”

“If you don't wanna wash dishes, why are you gonna wash dishes in the first place?” asked another grunt.

Guzma crossed his arms and glared at the grunt, who cowered back slightly. “You're right, I don't wanna wash the fuckin' dishes. But it's been pointed out that about five people are doing the work that should be shared by _forty_. That ain't right, and it stops today. None of you are too good for chores, and I ain't too good for 'em either. I'm doin' chores because I fuckin' love you dumbasses, even if you're too thick to pull your heads outta your asses half the time. If you love me or Plumeria or any of each other at all, you'll do your fuckin' chores. And if you don't—” Guzma's eyes gleamed slightly, in a way that made Gladion uncomfortable. “If you don't, then we feed you to Gladion's freaky horse-dog Pokémon.”

There was a long, loud silence. Plumeria had advised Gladion that Guzma would make the threat of feeding grunts to Null, and that while they would not actually feed anyone to Null, the grunts were dumb enough to believe it, so it was his job to play along.

Guzma nodded at Gladion, who got to his feet, walked away from the other grunts, and tossed Null's ball out.

He had his hand on the handles of her helmet at once, pressing her down to the ground to prevent her from attacking or moving. She wriggled in vain, but the bulky helmet on her face prevented her from getting anywhere. Her claws scrabbled at the floor, leaving visible divots and lines.

Half of the grunts jumped backward, scrambling away from Null. Gladion, kneeling next to her, ran his hand along her shoulder blade, his fingers running over her skin as it transitioned from exo-skeleton foreleg to leathery, then fuzzy torso.

Null went still.

“If they don't keep the house decently clean, you'll eat them, right?” Gladion asked her.

He allowed Null to lift her head slightly, so she could see the grunts. Most of them flinched. Gladion knew what they would see: the heavy, bulky helmet that covered her entire face, with darkness inside that was only broken by angry, glowing red eyes. He'd given her the Fire Memory for the color alone.

She made a noise that was somewhere between a growl and a purr. It was a noise that Gladion hadn't heard before. “Good girl,” he murmured into her ear.

She turned her head and Gladion let her have the movement, let her look up at him. Her scarlet eyes were expressionless, void of sanity; but he was intimately familiar with insanity in many forms (grief, fear, anger, loneliness, pain, nightmares) and so he looked right back, offering her a closed-mouthed smile. He'd learned the hard way that showing your teeth, as with most Pokémon, was considered a challenge.

She made the purring noise again.

“Back to the ball?” he asked her.

She shook her head violently.

“Will you stay still and quiet if I let go of your helmet?”

There was a pause, but then she reluctantly nodded. Gladion, barely daring to hope, let go of her helmet.

There was a moment when he was sure she was going to rush the frozen grunts, but she merely barked at them once— there was no other way to explain the sound, but it was almost a cough or possibly even laughter, and then she sat down with her clawed legs in the front and her scaly paws in the back, retracting the claws on both. The webbed tail moved from side to side and Gladion remembered that the basic form after which Null and her siblings had been modeled was a Houndoom. Maybe she had been barking. Maybe she'd just wagged her tail. Maybe she was more like a dog than anything. That bore some thinking about.

Guzma eyed Null warily, then turned back to face the frozen grunts. “She answers to him, and he answers to Plumeria and me. So if any of you fuckers want to bother him about anything, it's your funeral.”

Gladion met Emmett's eyes, and smiled slightly. He wanted Emmett, and all the other jackasses who had given him a hard time about washing dishes, to know that he was going to be made to wash dishes because Gladion had complained. He wanted them all to know that he was something to be reckoned with. Hazing, apparently, was not part of the Team Skull initiation rituals; Plumeria had explained that he was ostracized because he had shown up with pretty clothes and the ability to correctly use grammar when speaking.

“Now besides dish rotation,” continued Guzma, now ignoring Null, “you're responsible for cleaning your own living space. Yeah, you have missions and shit to do, but you also have free time when you're not doing anything. Do your laundry— and not this half-assed putting it out in the rain bullshit. First of all, it's humid here, because it never stops raining. So if you do that, your clothes never get dry, and then they start to fuckin' _stink_. They grow mold and shit. That ain't healthy. Secondly, there's a washing machine and a dryer in the basement, and if you're scared of the Spinarak then first of all don't be, because they're cute as hell; but if you're really, really scared then you come tell me or Plumeria. No shame— not everyone is cool enough for the spiders. She'll send her Salandit or her Grimer with you and they'll knock heads with Flamethrower or Rock Slide if you get scared enough. I'll send you my Ariados, because all the Spinnies are scared of her and she'll fuck 'em up if they get too close. Got it, numbskulls?”

There was a general half-hearted murmur of assent.

“I said, _got it, numbskulls_?”

“Yes, sir!” shrieked all of the grunts except Gladion, panicking at the tone of voice.

“That's more like it. Use the washing machine and the dryer. And wash your bedsheets— once a month if not more often. Those get stinky, too.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, squinted at the contents, then nodded and said, “Plumeria has a couple more things to say.”

Plumeria stepped forward, putting one hand on her hip. Gladion immediately noticed the way it made her body shift— and realized, at the same time, that she was doing it because of the immediately glazed expressions on the faces of the male grunts. Now that he knew she was more than a little bit manipulative, it made perfect sense. He'd been falling for it for a while, too; he'd nursed a half-hearted crush on her until the other grunts mentioned that she was more or less an item with Guzma, which he supposed made sense but didn't stop him from having _feelings_ , damn it.

She caught his eye and smirked slightly before speaking. “First of all: there's messes that are okay and there's messes that aren't. Okay messes are your own shit, stuff that isn't clothes, food, or anything that will start to smell if you leave it alone for a week. Not-okay messes are dirty or smelly clothes, food that doesn't end up in your stomach or the garbage can, and personal and Pokémon dander. That last bit gets everywhere, which is fine to start with— everyone loses hair and shit, you can't help it. What we can help is cleaning up after ourselves. If you make a mess, clean it up. End of story. If you make a mess and you don't clean it up, I'm either gonna tie you by your ankles from the roof, in the middle of a thunderstorm— or I'll just feed you to Gladion's Null. This also goes for for not doing your dishes, or making fun of people who _are_ doing their chores. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, ma'am!” squeaked the grunts.

“Good. New house rule: On Saturdays at noon— that's plenty of time for you to get up, don't whine— we all drop what we are doing and head to the kitchen and any place that you share with the others, and clean. Sweeping and mopping the floor, wiping the windows, cleaning the stovetop and the toaster and the microwave, wiping the kitchen counters, vacuuming in rooms with carpets, and dusting. If your Pokémon have an ability or a move that will help with cleaning, you can use it. Whirlwind and Wing Attack are great for dusting. Alolan Grimer and Muk will eat anything, so feed them things that you think are gross.” She paused. “If you don't help clean, we'll fucking kill you. Any questions?”

There was some shuffling, but nobody asked any questions.

Plumeria turned and looked pointedly at the clock. “Oh, hey, it's eleven fifty-nine, and today is a Saturday. Looks like today's our first cleaning day! Come get your cleaning jobs. If you work nicely and don't whine, I'll go down to Malie later and get a bunch of malasadas.”

Gladion would never stop being amazed at how well food worked as a motivational force for the grunts. They rushed almost as one to Plumeria, eagerly taking their assignments and earnestly getting to work for the promise of malasadas.

“Yo, man, haven't you ever heard that snitches get stitches?”

It was Emmett, and the two other guys who had given Gladion a hard time about washing dishes. They stood before him, frowning with arms folded.

“Yeah, man. It's like, where's your loyalty, man?” asked another grunt.

“I'll show you mine if you show me yours,” snarked Gladion. “Go earn your malasadas.” He reached over and casually scratched Null below the edge of her helmet. She let out a soft growl, hackles rising; the two guys behind Emmett began to slowly back away, faces pale.

“ _You're_ not going anywhere,” pointed out Emmett. Gladion decided Emmett had either huge balls or a death wish. Null's growl increased in volume, but Emmett didn't stop glaring at Gladion.

“Yes, he is,” said Guzma, having somehow approached without being noticed. “We've got the best job— the perks of having a brain on his head instead of up his ass, like some other people I could name, _Emmett_. Come on, kid.”

Gladion obligingly got to his feet. “Null,” he said softly, opening her ball.

She sat up obediently, and for the first time in his memory returned to him without trying to fight the ball.

It turned out that Guzma's idea of “the best job” was relocating the majority of the Spinarak nests in the basement. Gladion would not have found this so bad if Guzma had not _insisted_ that the little shits were to go unharmed. They got a bundle of dowel rods and stuck them into the knots of webs that covered the corners of the room where the washer and dryer were located, and with the help of Guzma's Charjabug to cast light over the environment, carried them to an empty, dark, and surprisingly dry room below the basement stairs.

“What kind of room is this?” asked Gladion.

“Well, back when Plume's family hadn't fucked back off to Kalos and left the house to rot in the rain, it was a wine cellar.” Guzma pointed. His Charjabug was perched on his hand, offering enough light to see by, and Gladion spotted a few big kegs in the back of the room.

“So she _is_ from Kalos! I thought I could hear her accent.”

Guzma nodded affably. One of the Spinarak that had been on the dowel rod with the nasty clump of cobweb crawled onto his hand; with a gentleness Gladion had never seen in him, the man plucked the Spinarak off his hand and put it back on the webbing. It chittered softly at him. “Yeah. Some of the wine is still in here, but some of the stupider grunts keep coming down and trying to sneak some of it. This is two Pidgey with one stone— I'm not responsible for numbskulls trying to get drunk if they're too scared to get into the wine cellar, and now people can do laundry without freaking out about the bugs.” He glanced at Gladion. “Plume told me you would like that.”

“It's a good solution."

“She also told me that she talked to you about the Enforcer bit.”

“Um— yes.”

“It's clear to me that you're not really ever gonna fit in here,” said Guzma bluntly. “Not for lack of trying, and not because there's anything wrong with you. The only thing we all have in common is how fucked up we are, kapishe?”

He could definitely agree with that. “Kapishe.”

“But you're also a poshie rich kid— dunno what _kind_ of poshie rich kid, but it's easy enough to tell. And a lot of the kids here, until they get smart enough to realize that poshie rich people are only like, a third of the cause of their problems, are gonna blame you for things that aren't your fault. That ain't fair to them, and that ain't fair to you. So as of right now, you're an Enforcer.”

Gladion absorbed this for a few moments. “What does it mean in practical terms?”

“You can kick their asses if they give you any lip,” said Guzma. “Though Plume says we're not doing that anymore. I dunno— it worked for my old man.” For a moment he looked almost lost, but then he carefully set the dowel rod down in the wine cellar. Gladion laid his down nearby, and they both headed back to the laundry room to get more dowels of cobweb and Spinarak. “Or at least, you can tell 'em to shut up, and if they sass you then you can refer 'em to me and I'll set 'em straight.”

“Okay.” He probably would have done that anyway; Gladion was stronger and scrappier here with Team Skull than he'd ever been at Aether— he used to be skin and bone, slender and lovely like Lusamine as she starved him of food and affection both, telling him (again for both) that it was for his own good. He probably couldn't hold Emmett in a fistfight for ten seconds. Null could, but it was generally considered unethical to _ask_ your Pokémon to hurt people.

“Also, you're moving out.”

Gladion blinked. “What?”

“Plume has a trailer. It's over on... Route Thirteen, I think? Over by the desert.” Guzma snagged a web and a pair of chittering Spinarak; Gladion did the same. “It's currently unoccupada. Sometimes if we need a night job I'll send a couple of grunts to stay there. You're gonna live there full-time.”

“If she has a mansion, why does she also have a trailer?”

“In case her parents fuck _back_ to Alola and kick her out,” said Guzma. “Not that any of us think that will happen. See, her parents have this place as a vacation home, but her mom hates Alola and her dad is a wimp. They own it for their reputation, they don't give a fuck what she does with it. She wrote and asked, even. Their answer was that they really do not give a fuck. Not in the same words— you know. Fancy-ass Kalosians.”

“Sure.” Lusamine's grandmother was from Kalos. For a while Lusamine had been sort of obsessed with trying to get him and Lillie to follow some arbitrary code of Kalosian manners that made _no goddamn sense_. “So I'm living there?”

“Yes,” said Guzma affably. “Until you get your thing under control.”

“My _thing_?” said Gladion coldly.

“Yeah. Null. Whatever it is. Wait, no, Plume said it was a she. And also that I'm allowed to think gendered pronouns on a genderless Pokémon are weird, but I have to respect them because Null could kill me in my sleep if I don't.”

Gladion was oddly touched by Plumeria's point of referring to Null by her pronouns, even though Null wasn't capable of expressing herself in quite that way. What mattered was that she was a she, and she made sure that Gladion knew she was a she, and since she didn't feel like communicating with anybody else beyond roaring and growling, it was up to Gladion to ensure that Null's pronouns were respected. It was a shit job, to be perfectly honest— but he was pretty sure, after today, that Null actually liked him. Few enough things in the world liked him enough that it made putting an effort for the things that did like him absolutely worth it.

“And when I _do_ get her under control?”

“Hotels as you need 'em, but mostly just the trailer. You like bein' alone, it shouldn't be too bad.”

Gladion nodded. He did like being alone, but one of the problems with being alone was that it gave him too much silence, which ended up being filled by the thoughts he didn't want to think.

“Thanks.”

“Don't thank me, thank Plume. She's got a soft spot for ya.” Guzma turned to regard him with a suspicious eye. “Which I don't know that I like all that much.”

Gladion swallowed. Guzma smirked.

“I refuse to say anything that can be used against me.”

“Eh, it's fine. You get used to it, when your girlfriend is smokin' hot and too nice for her own good. Everybody else falls in love, too.” Guzma shrugged. “Difference is, _you_ don't stare or drool, and she says it means that chivalry ain't dead or whatever.”

Gladion nodded awkwardly.

“Anyway, fuckin' topic change, because it's gettin' awkward. Plume said you mentioned Molly was nice, when you were talking. You think she's cute?”

Gladion mentally debated the merits of letting the Spinarak swarm and eat him for dinner, versus talking to Guzma about _girls_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So if Null was ripping up Gladion's clothes, then she was also ripping up the hotels where he stayed. There's no hotel in the world that would let a pet with destructive tendencies stay more than twenty minutes. So Gladion lived at the Shady House for a while.
> 
> In my universe, Plumeria's parents are Kalosian, but she was born in Alola. Her parents own the Shady House, but they live in Kalos and don't really care about Plumeria, so they let her use the mansion however she wants. Plumeria's a punk— neon pink and yellow hair, come on— so she decides to invite all of her delinquent friends to trash the place.
> 
> I actually wrote this before Windowpain. The bit where Lusamine's in his head was what inspired that story. I had to clean this up a bit before I could post it, though— Plumeria was horrifically OOC and the story didn't end on a very humorous note, which I wanted. That is now fixed.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Remember, it's called feedback because authors crave it and they starve without it.


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